another note on nonsense

In response to my original post on cat-calling and my responses to it, I got an interesting question that I wanted to bring up here. I cross-posted this to Feministing, and here’s what I was asked:

Why is their “responsibility to actively work to change those systems”? What’s in it for them?

Not trying to be a jerk but asking a legitimate question.

I suspect alot of men actually want you to talk back and that their silence has more to do with them being embarrassed by the scene you are making then the behaviour of the guy. It’s a tough situation to be in b/c doing what you do only makes you look like the crazy one, yet doing nothing makes some women feel powerless. I feel for you.

Super valid question! So valid, in fact, that it made me articulate myself a little more clearly, so I wanted to post my response here as well:

I don’t think this is jerk-ish at all; you raise a valid question. Here’s my thoughts on why men, too, share responsibility for calling out and attempting to countermand misogyny:

1. When you’re in a privileged subject position — male privilege, white privilege, straight privilege, cis privilege, able-bodied privilege, etc — you are always already reaping the benefits of that privilege. This is true whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, whether you want to be or not. So you can either actively work towards equality, which means admitting that your privilege is not earned but is instead received at the expense of another, or you can be a signatory to those unequal systems of power that privilege you and disenfranchise others. Being a signatory happens in two ways: passive or active. The cat-caller in question is an active participant in his privilege, but by not speaking against him, his friends and all the other onlookers (male, female, whomever) are being passive participants, passive signatories. So it’s the responsibility of those who witness to speak up and out against these systems of power when and how they can in order to work against them. There’s no neutral position.

2. It’s their responsibility because, as I said, I’ll leave, and they’ll all be standing there in the wake of out interaction, and if those onlookers want to actually be agents of equality, they have to — have to! — not allow the conversation to end with me. They need to use their privilege and their access and their power to continue engaging and challenging misogyny, even if it is uncomfortable.

3. It’s their responsibility because if onlookers would agree with people like me and refuse to associate with bigots and misogynists like the cat-caller, then Mr. Cat-Caller would have no safe social space in which to be a misogynist. This is about creating communities that will not abide that kind of behavior and as an outsider, there’s little I can do to affect that community. So it’s up to the insiders.

I hope this makes my position a little clearer. You’re absolutely right that these situations are uncomfortable and that those scenes embarrass us all, but I think we need to be willing to experience the kind of discomfort that this elicits in order to change these systems. I appreciate your sympathy and willingness to engage with these issues.

further nonsense

A perfect opportunity to follow up on my last post showed up in the comment stream today, so I thought I’d share it with you all and respond to it publicly.

What you’ve got there is a fearsome internet warrior, one Bradeep Ncube, challenging me about whether or not I was telling the truth about talking back to cat-callers (click on the image to see the comment in its unchanged condition on my original post). What Mr. Ncube doesn’t know is that he owes me a crisp fifty dollar bill now, because not only would I do any and all of what I wrote about last week, but I have done that and will do it again, whenever I have the safety to do so, and am doing it now by talking back to him.

But let’s recap, okay? What I wrote about last week was an instance of street harassment and my response to it. I had been called out at on the street, just down the road from my house, while biking home one recent evening. A young-looking fellow had yelled something to me like “hey baby, why not roll on up here blahblahbullshitblah” and I responded with a very similar diatribe to the one I posted on Friday. The abridged version, for those of you who don’t want to (re)visit my vitriol, is as follows: you don’t have the right to speak to me that way and if you do, I’m going to get in your face and call you on it. No one has the right to put my body on display and attempt to belittle me for my female subjectivity, so the kind of pathetic adolescents who enjoy cat-calling should be prepared to get a loud, humiliating, public earful if they make the grave mistake of calling out this bitch. End quote.

So anyhow, as you can well guess, Mr. Ncube thinks that I’m full of a lot of hot air, but unfortunately for him, I’m mostly full of piss and vinegar and I take his kind of bullshit just as seriously as I take the things that get yelled at me on the street.

Mr. Ncube, you may be unaware, but your behavior here is the part and parcel of the privileged, patriarchal, misogynistic behavior of every man who hollers at women on the street; you are challenging my personhood and my humanity by calling into question my voice. You are attempting to reduce the power of my response by co-opting it, by passing judgement upon it, by re-framing it as, what? A whole lot of feminist bluster without any force behind it? I can’t speak for you, but there’s my assumption. In essence, I assume, based on your comment, that you think I am actually the weak female stereotype who talks a big game but is easily cowed by the presence of male privilege.

Mr. Ncube, you are so very wrong. You see, my mother and all my Feminist Godmothers raised me to believe that I have a voice and that I can use that voice and that it is my primal responsibility to use that voice to protect myself. So if you think I won’t call out the men who cat-called me, then you must think I won’t call out you, either. But I will and I am and I will continue to speak back at those who speak against me and I will not let you silence me. Surprise!

Here’s the part where you speak a grain of truth, Mr. Ncube: I do not always talk back. Because the sad goddamn truth is that I don’t have the privileged subject position to always speak back; sometimes it’s late at night, or it’s dark, or I’m vastly outnumbered, or I’m alone, or I feel unsafe, or I’m in any number of other circumstances that mean it is safer for me to remain silent and accept verbal abuse than to open my mouth and risk physical abuse. Did you know, Mr. Ncube, that someone is sexually assaulted every two minutes in the US? That nearly one fifth of women report being sexually assaulted and that since 54% of sexual assaults are never reported to the police, chances are that 1/5 is a low estimate? I’m attempting to beat the statistical likelihood of being assaulted, because I live within the dangerous bodily experience of being a woman, so yes, sometimes I choose safety over speaking out. Sometime, the kind of privilege you’re attempting to wield here does succeed in silencing me. But you know what else? You scare me precisely not one bit, so this? This is one of those times when I will speak out.

Look, I doubt Bradeep Ncube is reading this. He likely sidled by my digital soapbox, left his mark like a dog pissing in the street, and moved along, because he likely doesn’t have the courage or moral fortitude to actually face me. I mean, how brave is it to leave a virtually anonymous comment on some random blog you don’t (to the best of my knowledge) follow? At the same time, how goddamn brave is it for me to use this digital platform to broadcast my voice? Not that much braver, in actuality, which is why I practice what I preach and type and teach, and did in fact speak back to the boys who cat-called me and am speaking back to Bradeep Ncube, whether or not he’ll hear me. I tell the truth here, friends, and that’s what’s brave. So Ncube isn’t likely reading this and thus I’m unlikely to change his mind or actually have the chance to engage in real discourse with him. Oh well. No big loss.

Therefore, what I mean to do in this post isn’t (just) to give the lie to his assumption of me, but is part of the same talking-back project I outlined in my last post. When people speak against me, I speak back, whether those people are cowards on a street corner or cowards lurking in the corners of the web. There have been many things written by smarter and better informed people than me about the incidences of digital harassment of female bloggers. I recommend reading those things, because they are profound and insightful and offer useful and nuanced approaches to dealing with this new realm of harassment. This, however, is my approach: talking back.

In sum: Bradeep Ncube, you owe me $50 and an apology. I doubt I’ll get either, but that won’t — now or ever — stop me from saying it.

in which I will brook none of that nonsense

Fair warning to all sad, sorry young men trolling the streets of my city: if you cat-call me (as one unfortunate boy discovered the other day), I will not take it.

I will instead stop my bike, ask you to please explain precisely why you think it’s acceptable to speak to me that way, and spend the next five to seven minutes schooling you on just exactly how sad and sorry you are; the bigger the audience, the better, because if you think that you can shame me for being a woman, then I’d very much like you to be as shamed as possible in as public an arena as possible. If you shout at me on the street, I will shout back because you are putting my body on display and expecting my silent acquiescence. If you think that my female subjectivity makes my body forfeit, then you are, in this case, sadly goddamn mistaken. I’m not interested in that game, so I’m going to shout and lecture and belittle you — I am going to get in your face — I am going to make you look at my eyes and not at my tits – I’m going to make a big goddamn scene — I’m going to crush you with my intellect and my voice and my power so that what is now on display is your pathetic misogyny, not my body.

I am decidedly not your “baby girl.” You seem to be unclear about why that’s an insulting thing to call me, a grown-ass woman, so let me explain; by calling me “baby girl,” you are attempting to reduce my subjectivity to the kind of small, manageable size that allows you to overpower me, to disregard my personhood, and to ignore my humanity. By calling me “baby girl,” you elide me. That’s not to say that the term baby girl never be one of endearment or kindness, but if you’ll recall, I don’t know and therefore cannot endear you. If I gave you permission to speak to me in that way, it would be a different matter but, hey! I didn’t, so shut your mouth. I am no one’s baby, I am not a girl, and, more importantly, I am not the kind of woman who allows herself to be spoken to in that manner. Should I repeat myself? I’ll repeat myself: if you call me out on the street, expect that I will speak back. You want a monologue, but you’ve damn well walked into a dialogue, and now we’re going to have a conversation. It’s not as much fun when your victim talks back, is it?

I apologize for the fact that we live in a culture that trains you to think that you can somehow enhance your masculinity through that kind of behavior, but my sadness will not diminish the righteous fury of my talking back. I am sorry that you’ve been led to believe that you will be bigger, better, and more manly if you belittle women. I’m sorry that your own male subjectivity means you’ve been locked into unequal, unjust networks of power. Your personhood is just as restricted as mine by these systems and that means that misogyny is a goddamn tragedy for the both of us. But you still have more privilege than I do, straight white man, and thus it is your responsibility to actively work to change those systems. You are a beneficiary of your privilege, but you don’t have to be a signatory to my oppression. If you want to actually prove yourself to be a person of worth, then you will join in the fight against this kind of bullshit instead of actively engaging in it.

And to the other men, standing around embarrassed and silent while I yelled at your friend? You are tacitly approving of his behavior by not taking a stance against it. Call him out, don’t let him save face, don’t put up with that bullshit. Because I’m about to bike away and then it will be up to you to take the next step. Do you want to be men of quality, or do you want to be passive supporters of inequality?

In sum, young sir, you picked the wrong bitch to mess with.

Follow-up #1
Follow-up #2

fragrant

Tasks
1. office hours
2. class
3. come on, brain, make it all happen!

Trappings

blouse: Anthropologie (ancient) sweater: Target jeans: Old Navy sweetheart boots: Civico 10 belt: vintage

Tales

Spring smells different here than it does (did?) in the Bay Area, where (when?) I grew up. I wonder if I can get a perfume made that smells like moss from the redwood forest, grapefruit, sea air, rosemary bushes, and vanilla? I think that would make this soggy spring a little more cheerful.

In other news, Judith Butler broke my brain last night, but I successfully led discussion with my students on George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” wherein they all dissected the problems with terms like “illegal alien” and the politics behind conversations about “enemy combatants” versus “terrorists.” Hey there, little minds, ready to open?

the small victories

Tasks
1. so much work!
2. Friday evening funsies — tonight is my department’s quarterly wine-and-cheese event, which always means belligerent fun with super smart people. It might sound like a fancy affair, but really it’s just wine out of plastic cups and a lot of laughter. So, you know, my idea of perfect.

Trappings

jeans – Old Navy Sweetheart blouse – thrifted scarf and boots – vintage

Tales

This was a surprisingly difficult teaching week; my students were all really great and are trying really hard, but I found myself feeling really worried about all of them. I think the hidden secret about teaching is how much we (most of us) care about our students. I want so badly for them to succeed, but this is the part of term where I realize that some of them might not. The truth is, that’s really out of my hands; they’re the one’s giving themselves the failing grade. I just have to be the one to assign it. But still. I worry, I fret, I want them to pass, I want them to go out into the world prepared. It’s a heavy load to shoulder sometimes.

But. There were some small victories this week with those students that made a big difference to me.

There was the moment when I taught my whole class how to mimic a Jamaican accent (these skills are the remnants of a misbegotten youth in the theater) as a reward for their hard work. Their hooting-and-hollering laughter was my reward. Pro tip: to learn on your own, just follow this schema and don’t forget the diphthongs!

There was the moment, after I showed them an example of my revision process (complete with scanned images of my work in progress paper), when one said “what class is that for?” and I got to explain what it is that I do when I’m not teaching. And they looked shocked, as if they were thinking “that’s a job?” Yes, friends: the best job.

And then there was the moment when I went off script and had a real conversation with them about something I really care about. As a scholar, an activist, and a woman who benefits from white privilege, I’ve thought long and hard about the issues of Native American representation and cultural appropriation. The frequent hipster headdresses and “Pocahottie” costumes I see in this here Pacific Northwest town make me sick, angry, and fired up. But I tend not to bring these conversations up in my class, for a variety of reasons — not wanting to insult anyone, not wanting to use my privileged position to colonize someone else’s story, not wanting to start conversations that cannot be finished within the confines of the course, not wanting to reveal my own biases, etc. However, I decided to give the students a sample argument about the harm of Native American sports mascots to use in practicing different kinds of appeals (appeals to authority, emotion, etc). I was hoping that it would be a chance for them to try on arguments that they might never have considered without devolving into a rant about culturally oppressive representation. Here’s how it turned out: my students tried on the argument. They made useful connections (Native American mascots are similar to minstrel shows and blackface, for example) and had an interesting conversation about the negative impact that the Braves might have. And then… it happened. A student made the “but what about the Celtics” argument and the conversation became about more than just how to write cogent argumentative essays. I put my lesson plan on the back burner and we spent 40 minutes — in a class about argumentation! — talking about issues of cultural appropriation, about how even “positive” stereotypes work insidious damage, about the dearth of representations of the contemporary lives of Native peoples leads to global misconceptions about who they are and what they want, etc. I’m really pleased to say that my mostly-white class had come to the consensus, by the end of that discussion, that dressing up like Pocahontas means so much more than just imitating a Disney movie. They came to the consensus that there was a difference between the Brave and the Celtic. They said they’d never had that kind of conversation before, that they just hadn’t ever thought about the kinds of images we see of Native peoples. I might not have taught them what they were supposed to learn, but I definitely helped them unpack some of their own misconceptions about cultural appropriation and that makes me seriously glad to be doing this job.